College Hockey:

The Penn State Board of Trustees Friday approved the architectural design for Pegula Ice Arena at its meeting at the Nittany Lion Inn.

Construction on the rink will begin in the coming weeks.

“On behalf of my wife, Kim, and the rest of the Pegula family, may I say we are thrilled by the Board of Trustees’ approval of the facility that will bear our name and provide countless opportunities for Penn State hockey players and the Central Pennsylvania region for decades to come,” said Terry Pegula, whose $88 million gift brought the arena and hockey programs to fruition, in a statement. “Our thanks to all of the people who have taken this vision from a dream to a concrete reality in less than 18 months. We look forward to seeing construction vehicles on site very soon.”

PSU men’s coach Guy Gadowsky is equally enthralled.

“This is a very exciting time for Penn State hockey,” added Gadowsky. “Being one step closer to seeing tangible activity at the construction site puts a jump in my step.”

“I’m extremely grateful to the Penn State Board of Trustees for their approval of the Pegula Ice Arena project,” said women’s coach Josh Brandwene. “This is such an exciting time for the Penn State hockey community and concrete signs of construction will add a very significant element to the programs’ progress.”

The arena will be located near the corner of University Drive and Curtin Road across from the Bryce Jordan Center and is set to open prior to the 2013-14 season.

Plans for the official groundbreaking ceremony will be announced at a later date.

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Please also keep “woofing,” taunting, and otherwise unsportsmanlike behavior to a minimum. Your posts will more than likely be deleted, and worse yet, you reflect badly on yourself, your favorite team and your conference.

Guest

Cant wait to see a D~III team stomp the gophers in their first year!

ritalum

I can’t wait to see RIT stomp PSU at our homecoming next year.

God

Nice Dream!

Anonymous

This arena is too small and they’ll regret building it as such.

Todd Kort

The proposed arena will seat 6,000 for hockey. There are only six universities that consistently average more than 6,000: Wisconsin, N. Dakota, Minnesota, Nebraska-Omaha, Michigan, and Colorado College.

Whallee9sp

Maine would average well over 6000 if they didn’t have such a small arena. But college hockey is at its best in small barns. Alfond Arena, at a little over 5000 seats, is routinely regarded as one of the toughest places for visiting teams to play. Its standing room only for every game there. Yet it is one of the loudest arenas at any level of hockey. Its the fans who make an arena great, not its size!

Freddie

Are you saying size doesn’t matter?

http://pulse.yahoo.com/_IBX3ZLT5XKNZDOL2YZHPVX27VI STEVEN P

At the very least,the structure should be designed to allow for expansion in the future. TCF Bank Stadium only holds 50,000 for football,but was designed in such a way to permit expansion to 80,000 without requiring a major structural redesign.

Hurls

We all know Hockey is a superior sport, unique unto itself. But can’t we all agree this is the wrong time for PSU to be “unveiling” things?

BobbyB

No.

http://twitter.com/out_of_floss Derek Fox

eh, guess it looks ok. not much compared to Messa Rink though.

MPLS Sioux

Which is nothing compared to the Ralph Engelstad Arena…but then again, nothing is